Among Christian believer, I frequently hear some
form of this rather unthinking question:

Is not all psychoneurosis due to sin in the life?

Is not neurosis always a reaction or response to
guilt ?

Doesn't it prove that a man lacks spirituality if he is neurotic?

The answer to all these questions is "No," though
guilt is, however, a frequent response accompanying
neurotic behavior. Some mental trouble is due to organic factors, in fact such organic and physical causes
can in their turn increase a person's stress and tension.
Not all functional (i.e. psychological) maladjustments
are due to sin either.

I am reminded of the remark of a church member
when asked whether he might be interested in a Gospel witness group who were actually working with
patients inside a mental hospital. He said, "I'm not at
all interested in such a group. All that mental disease is
due to sin, you know." His remark was not necessarily true, but, if it were, that fact should tend to
accelerate the efforts of true Christians to witness-and
some of these mental cases were actually improving
under this testimony.

What are the facts about this difficult question? just
what relationship is there between maladjustment and
sin? Even though it is true that much of maladjustment is sin-involved, if not sin-caused, we must refrain
from making any generalizations which include all
cases. Dare we point the finger of scorn, and would this
not be an accusation? If so then who is the "accuser
of the brethren?"

Maladjustment is an illness. We cannot say "You
naughty person, you must be sinning or you wouldn't
have appendicitis." Neither dare we say: "If you are
neurotic, it must be because you are not walking close
to the Lord."

Not every evil is evidence of sin and guilt. Consider
job. He was not a sinlessly perfect man, but he was
spiritually mature. Nevertheless, he showed some signs
of psychoneurosis while under stress, such symptoms
as-despondency, reactive depression, complaints, emotional outburst, and anxiety tension. Facing the Lord
in. Job 42, brought about the cure.

Anxiety is now known to be the starting point of all
maladjustments from hangnails to suicide. Every neurosis is fear-derived. However, the Lord's most frequently repeated commandment in the Bible is: "Fear
not." Yet we can have anxiety without being gross
sinners. The Lord is able to
chasten,
if there is sin, but
he
scourges
every son, regardless of guilt. God allows
evil circumstances in the lives of His own, but these
same evil circumstances may be used by Him for the
prevention of sin, or to draw His child close to Himself, as well as in a correctional manner. Nevertheless,
many maladjustments are sin-involved, if not sin-caused.

One of the best ways to know that your patient is
guilty, is by his very denial of the matter, used as
a defense reaction. How often I hear these neurotics
say; "Now my trouble is purely psychological and not
spiritual at all, so you don't need to bring any of your
Bible stuff into this discussion." Such contentions
reveal a conflict over guilt itself. Usually they are
aware of this guilt in their lives, but they refuse to
admit its dire effect upon them. Incidentally, one seldom sees problems like this in a child of God, which
are purely psychological or purely spiritual. Most of
these problems are mixtures of both together. With
that attitude, there is no use to proceed further, nor to
cram Christian doctrine down his throat. He must
suffer, and then he will learn better.

What then do we do for the Christian neurotic? S
ecular methods often help them, but they are not
quite as effective as in the world. Dare we say that
"Christ is the answer." If we do, some Christian will
call us fanatic. They surely will. not saying that the patient has guilt
in his life, nor that
he is a spiritual failure. e Yes, he probably has such
guilt-but so have you.

Again, we rehearse, in psychoneurosis, "Christ is
the answer," and for every maladjustment. Is it impossible to say the same for every organic trouble? It
seems too simple to say that "Christ is the answer," and
we need to do so with care, lest the patient feel that we
are too trite and that he is being given the "brush-off."
No. We mean more than that.- Christ is the over-all
answer to our maladjustments. He shows us in His
Word how to overcome those very things which lead
to neurotic fear, at the same time that he is getting
purely secular help. The well-known hymn says, "Jesus
can solve every problem." Can He? Do you really
believe that line? I do.